my God,” she murmured, thunderstruck. That would certainly secure her a lot of respect the next time she went job hunting.
“It’s a really good picture,” Terry ventured.
Callie stared at him. “You’ve seen it?”
“I ran out and bought a copy as soon as Jason called this morning.”
“So this was a setup,” she said, glaring at the whole traitorous lot of them. She waved a finger under Jason’s nose. “You didn’t just bump into them into the hallway. You invited them along to protect you, didn’t you?”
“Actually, I was thinking more in terms of moral support for you,” he said.
“I’ll bet.”
“It’s true,” Terry said. “He thought it would be better for you to see it surrounded by your best friends, just in case you turned out not to be a publicity hound like most of the people in television.”
“We’re supposed to help you get over the shock,” Neil said, shooting a condemning look at Jason that made it clear whose fault he thought it was that she was in shock at all.
“It’s not so bad, really,” Terry tried to reassure her. “It’ll be forgotten by tomorrow. Remember that time the soap opera magazine reported I was having a steamy affair with my leading lady? No one even remembered her name a few weeks later.”
“That’s because you angled to have her fired for planting the rumor in the first place,” Callie reminded him.
Terry shrugged unrepentantly. “She couldn’t act worth beans, anyway.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Callie asked. “Send a letter to all the TGN stockholders and enclose a copy of the front page of the paper and suggest Jason be voted out of office?”
“An intriguing form of retribution,” Jason agreed, not looking the least bit panicked, probably because he owned a very large chunk of that stock himself. “Of course, I’ve long since convinced them that any time my name is mentioned, the network’s call letters are, as well. It’s good PR.”
“Sounds a little self-serving to me,” Callie contended. “It protects your butt since you seem like the kind of man who gets caught with his pants down relatively frequently.” She paused, then added, “Pun absolutely intended.”
“Maybe we should be thinking about a way to capitalize on this,” Jason suggested with just the faintest hint of caution in his voice as he watched Callie closely.
“I don’t think I like the sound of that,” she said.
“There’s bound to be a lot of fascination now that people have gotten a look at that picture,” Jason insisted, trying to sound as if the idea had just occurred to him. “It’s the perfect time to announce that you’re the new star of Within Our Reach. People will think we were just sealing the deal with a kiss.”
“Not that kiss,” Terry commented drily. “You link the deal and that kiss and you’ll be in court for sexual harassment.”
Callie gritted her teeth. “Forget the kiss. I am not the new star of anything. Why can’t you get that through your head?”
“Because I know what I’m doing,” Jason responded. “You’ll be spectacular.” He glanced toward Terry for support.
“You do have the kind of face the camera loves,” Terry concurred. He grabbed a paper someone had left behind on a neighboring chair. “Just look at this. You’re beautiful, darling.”
Despite herself, Callie found herself transfixed. It wasn’t so much that she looked glamorous and sophisticated that stunned her. It was the luminous expression on her face as Jason’s lips claimed hers. The photographer must have caught her before fascination had been transformed into irritation. She practically glowed. Jason appeared no less enchanted. No wonder the copywriters had jumped to all sorts of wild conclusions about their relationship.
“I don’t know,” she said, her certainty wavering for the first time. Would it be so terrible to take the job, especially considering what the amount of money mentioned in that contract would allow her to do to make her mother’s life easier?
“Trust me, darling. Would I lie to you?” Terry asked.
“In a heartbeat,” she asserted as her common sense reasserted itself. She could not allow herself to be manipulated into doing something that was totally alien to her talents and her personality. Not that closing huge stock deals didn’t occasionally require a bit of acting, but the audience was very limited.
“His motives are especially suspect when you might be the only thing between him and the unemployment line,” Neil contributed darkly.
Callie looked from Neil to Terry to Jason. “What does he mean? You aren’t holding his job hostage to make sure I take this role, are you? Not even you would stoop that low.”
“No, it’s not like that,” Jason said, though he didn’t look particularly wounded by the charge, which meant she probably had some part of it right.
“The show is in serious trouble, though,” he added. “The ratings are down.”
“They’re in the toilet,” Terry confirmed.
“The sponsors are threatening to bail on us. No sponsors, no show. That’s the nature of the business,” Jason said. “But the minute I saw you on-screen, I knew we had a chance to turn things around.”
“Could you dump a little more pressure on her?” Neil asked with disgust. “Talk about a couple of manipulating bastards.”
Callie reached over and patted his hand. “It’s okay. They’re not going to pressure me into doing anything,” she assured him. Then she looked at Jason. “Is the show really in that much trouble? Are you seriously considering canceling it?”
“It may be the only option,” Jason confirmed.
He said it so bluntly that she knew at once he wasn’t playing mind games with her. Cancellation had been discussed at very high levels at the network.
“What about new writers? A hot new story line?” she suggested.
“That’s where you come in,” he explained.
“Wouldn’t you be better off hiring some recognized actress who knows what the heck she’s doing?”
“Too expensive,” he insisted. “Besides, this will make a terrific sort of Cinderella story. The media will be all over it.”
“Like vultures,” Neil commented.
Callie sighed. She looked at Terry and thought of those vicious notes he’d wanted her to investigate, the mysterious falling cabinet. Then she considered the all-too-real threat of cancellation. Guilt weighed heavily on her.
Even so, she knew she was going to have to let him down. As silly as it seemed given her lack of alternatives, she couldn’t walk away from the profession she’d chosen to play at acting.
She gazed at Terry
